A friend recently said that he thought he’d found a flaw in my arguments. Firstly I was saying that the DIA’s Internet filtering scheme won’t really work, and secondly I was saying that it was the first step on the slippery slope of out of control Internet censorship. How can the filtering scheme be a threat if it doesn’t even work?

There are two answers to this.

1. Does the Filter Work?

The Internet filtering scheme proposed by the Department of Internal Affairs is good at some things and bad at others.

What It’s Good At

The Netclean filter used by the DIA is limited to stopping access to particular websites or parts of websites based on their Internet address and path. This means that it’s good at stopping casual access to a known web-page that doesn’t get moved around.

If, for the sake of argument, the DIA decided to use the system to ban access to a certain page on Wikipedia, this would easily stop normal Internet users from accessing the page. They would try to visit the page, they’d get the page saying it had been banned – and they’d stop there because they probably don’t really care that much, nor do they know how to get around the filter.

What It’s Not so Good At

It’s not very good at stopping people who are deliberately trading illegal material. Firstly, they’re coordinating the trading by chat and then sharing the files using peer to peer (P2P) systems – both of which aren’t blocked by the DIA’s Internet filter. Secondly, the content keeps getting moved around in order to avoid being shut down. Thirdly, the people doing this know that what they’re doing is wrong and illegal, so they’re actively taking measures to protect themselves such as using encrypted proxies in other countries. The filter will hardly even slow them down.

The more conspiracy-minded among you might ask why the DIA are trying to implement a scheme that won’t do a very good job of achieving it’s stated purpose but could be used to block access for normal people to normal websites.

2. The Filtering Principle

The more important reason to my mind is the slippery slope argument. While the currently proposed Internet filtering scheme is more ineffectual than scary, a successful implementation will establish some important and far-reaching principles such as:

1. The Department of Internal Affairs has the right to arbitrarily decide to filter the Internet.
2. The DIA has the right to decide what material should be filtered.
3. It is acceptable for the government to intercept and examine Internet traffic without a search warrant.
4. When censoring Internet content there is no need to meet the same oversight requirements that apply when censoring books or movies.
5. The ISPs will happily censor their users.

I don’t agree with these principles, and once they’re established in practice it will be significantly harder to argue against them in the future if things change. For example, if the DIA decided to change the methodology used for the filtering to a more invasive/disruptive one, or chose to drastically extend the scope of the material to be filtered.

Answer

So, to answer the original question, the DIA’s proposed Internet filter will be ineffectual at stopping the trade in child pornography, and it’s the implications of implementing it that particularly worry me.

UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

The UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has released its latest annual report (2008/2009). While they cover a much wider range of activity, one of the findings is highly relevant to the debate about Internet filtering in New Zealand.

Similarly we can report a step change in the way that offenders access images, with the vast majority of trading taking place on various peer to peer (P2P) platforms. Our focus must now be on tackling this as a priority.

What’s relevant about this? The Department of Internal Affairs’ proposed Internet filtering scheme only works with unencrypted websites, and is useless against P2P file trading.

How Voluntary Ends

The UK has a non-government voluntary web-filtering system that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can sign up for. Well, as reported by the Independent, it won’t be voluntary very soon:

The leaked Home Office letter says a clause in the Police, Crime and Private Security Bill in the Queen’s Speech would “compel domestic ISPs to implement the blocking of illegal images of child sexual abuse”.

The New Zealand system is also voluntary for ISPs. I’m worried that the voluntary nature of the scheme will only last as long as it takes to get established.

Filtering Systems are an Opportunity for People Who Wish to Suppress Free Speech

Finally there’s an article about an attempt by Scientologists in Australia to not only have anti-Scientology sites added to the Australian Internet filter, but also sites that provide anonymisation services to those sites.

We have identified that such websites play a major role in the ongoing hate campaign against our Church and their removal or a restriction of access and of content would play a major role in preventing further religious vilification against us.

It is therefore recommended that the Australian Government take action to prevent to the creators of websites, whose primary purpose is the incitement of religious vilification, to be prevented from using programs such as WhoisGuard to conceal their identity, so that normal recourse to the law may be accessed as needed to defend basic rights covered by Australian law.

One of the problems with Internet filtering is that, once it’s established, there are no more technical and legal difficulties in banning material on the Internet. This means that the filter is now fair game to every group that has a bee in their bonnet about controlling access to certain sorts of information.

Well, my blog has well and truly been taken over by Internet filtering. Things have been a bit quiet recently, so here’s an update:

• I’m still waiting for the Ombudsman’s report on whether I can have access to the list of filtered sites.
• I haven’t heard from Archives about the DIA deleting their records.
• I have been persuaded to spell Internet with a capital I even though I prefer to be a little more avant garde.
• I’m part of the Internet NZ working group developing policy on Internet filtering.
• I’m working on collecting more information (still no response from the Maori or Act parties, waiting to hear from ISPs, have more questions to send to the DIA and the Censor).

So, what’s next? I’m thinking a lot about how to continue the campaign against Internet filtering, while also considering some of the larger issues that this raises about protecting the civil liberties of Internet users. Email me if you’ve got any ideas or what to help.